49 Hours

This report synthesizes some intriguing research on professional development. Here's the passage that blows my mind:

"Intensive professional development efforts that offered an average of 49 hours in a year boosted student achievement by approximately 21 percentile points. Other efforts that involved a limited amount of professional development (ranging from 5 to 14 hours in total) showed no statistically significant effect on student learning" (p. 9).

The authors concede that the data set is limited (meta-analysis found only nine well-designed studies). But this should give pause to anyone who plans one-time-only PD experiences. How much can we really learn in an hour or two, if it's not connected to other experiences and has no follow-up?

It gives me further confidence that PD needs to be ongoing and focused on practice.

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Charles, these are really powerful statistics. They cast a very harsh light on PD or Continuing Education which only provides a cursory touch.

Many professions require a certain number of hours of miscellaneous continuing education credits each year - often fulfilled by sitting through a hodgepodge of 1 hrs sessions that provide limited insight into a particular topic. This report essentially calls that approach out as useless.

Imagine if all that effort and time were instead focused into a deep dive into one issue or topic that the learner were really interested in? Not all at once - but in small segments over the course of a year - building and reinforcing each time?

Well said! I think we are on to something here. As a teacher, I often felt pulled in many directions, even within myself, and so I'm also wondering if having an extended focus would further benefit teacher satisfaction (while simultaneously increasing chances of success).